Top 20 TV Shows – Part 2

Top 20 TV Shows to Waste Your Time On – Part 2
Written by Matt Hamilton

Start with #20 through to #11 in Part 1 of this series HERE.

Without further ado, here’s the Top 10 sukkas.

10. Extras – BBC

Ricky gets two shows on here. Extras has only two seasons and like The Office, ends on a strong, emotional note.  The best part about the series is how every episode has a guest star, and every guest star pokes fun at themselves and is funny as hell. Trivia note, during the Kate Winslet episode, she says “Do a holocoust film, get an Oscar.” Ricky wrote that, two years later, she wins best actress for The Reader, a holocoust film. Patrick Stewart is perfect in the scene below.

9. Community – NBC

Perhaps rivaling 30 Rock for jokes per second is Community.  Another ensemble with many strong characters (except Shirley whom isn’t funny and I want to get hit by a bus), it gets a little too Juno, which is to say it thinks it’s really clever with its dialogue and goes over the top sometimes with its pop culture references, which cheapens the humour, but at the end of the day, this show makes you laugh. And often. What more do you want out of a sitcom?

8. Curb Your Enthusiasm – HBO

Larry David, who created Seinfeld with…Seinfeld, is behind Curb. The best part about this show is that it is improvised. It has run 9 seasons, and every time it seems it is running out of scene, it comes back hard with an absolute banger of a season. The highlight for me is the Seinfeld reunion.  This show is so funny I have two links; a clip and outtakes. If you don’t laugh, you’re stupid. There, I said it.

7. 30 Rock – NBC

30 Rock is one of the funniest shows in the last 5 years and that has to do with a strong cast of characters, emmy winning writing (thank you Tina Fey) and its relentless break neck pace.  Someone once told me there is a joke every 3 seconds, not sure if that’s true but seems accurate. They come so fast and furious, the jokes that don’t work, you never notice because right around the corner is a banger. The guest stars are also kickass – Matt Damon, Jon Hamm, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, Oh yeah, Alec Baldwin is the greatest human ever, next to Bruce Willis of course.

6. The Walking Dead – AMC

AMC is a basic cable station that has become a heavy weight with 3 exceptional and highly rated series. Frank Darabont managed to turn a genre graphic novel and cross it over to a mainstream. It’s not a zombie show. It is an intricate, character drama that happens to land during a zombie apocalypse. Heart wrenching, terrifying, shocking, funny, and who doesn’t love watching zombie’s get dangled.  There’s a reason season 2’s premiere is the most watched cable show in TV history.

5. Arrested Development – FOX

I would call this the best sitcom of all time had it not only run for 3 seasons (Seinfeld still carries that crown, if anyone mentions Friends I’m going to punch them) It’s rare in an ensemble cast where you can’t pick a favorite. As soon as you pick Michael, you think, oh yeah, Gob is hilarious, but how good is George Michael, and Tobias…and it goes on and on. Every episode makes you laugh out loud several times and the good news is it’s coming back. A ten-episode mini-series and a movie. Cue The Final Countdown!

4. Mad Men – AMC

The reigning 4 time Emmy Winner for Best Dramatic Series, and there is a reason for that. The stylish series about the Ad men on Madison Avenue features such strong, subtle writing and characters you slowly fall in love with. Don Draper is the charismatic anchor of the show but the scene stealing Roger Sterling lightens up every episode. Episode 5 of the first season is some of the best TV you’ll ever see. Below you’ll see why Don Draper is a gangster.

3. Breaking Bad – AMC

How is this for a hook? Insecure high school chemistry teacher is diagnosed with cancer so starts cooking meth to pay his medical bills.  Uhh, that sounds good, I’ll have that.  While the hook seems a little ridiculous, it comes about organically in the narrative and never once do you question it. The writers create such a great rooting interest in both Walter White and Jesse Pinkman, despite their choices you’re with them 100% of them.  Each season the stakes get higher and the series gets better, and you’re stuck on the edge of your seat. Below is one of the best-written speeches you’ll ever see.

2. The Office – BBC

Ricky Gervais’s brilliant mocumentary is almost as close to a perfect series as you can get. It runs only two seasons plus a special but each season is full of hilarious, almost cartoonish characters so deep rooted in reality you can’t help but love them. Ricky’s goofy yet honest portrayal of meathead boss David Brent makes some situations so awkward even Larry David would feel uncomfortable. The special puts a perfect, emotional ending to a series you wish hadn’t ended so early. Tim and Gareth’s antics are alone enough to rent/buy/illegally stream this whole series.

1. The Wire – HBO

No series has done a better job at blurring the lines between right and wrong, good and bad then The Wire. Everything is so authentic that you don’t feel like you’re watching TV, you feel like you’re watching a slice of life. Each season is littered with memorial, original and relatable characters who are all flawed because they are all real. Not to mention the greatest character names ever; Jimmy McNulty, Bunk, Avon Barksdale, Stringer Bell, and of course the most baddass gay hitman ever, Omar. “Omar comin!!”

Bam, that’s it. Have a different opinion, or a show I should watch let me know in the comments.

Well, he said it.  We’d love to hear what you think of the Top 20 TV shows of the last 10 years according to Matt.  Leave us a comment below or join the conversation on our Facebook Page.  Did he miss any of your absolute favourite TV shows? Are there any on his list that you think were completely garbage? We’re also on Twitter, where  you can take quick jabs at @mattwhammer in 140 characters or less.

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